Buying a 1980 Autocar Semi Truck! 

"That excites me more than it should." Sometimes it's the little joys in life that are the most satisfying...

Eva says it ok to buy. You need to get that young lady a piece of Jewelry!

2 years late but this intro is my favorite of all the intros. I, sometimes, watch it over and over.

5:20 you should keep your oil tank under a roof, with this new device in the top you cannot avoid rain water runnig into the tank.

Eva: "You should probably buy that truck". She's a keeper for sure. 💖

Can't wait to see Eva wrangling that puppy down the road. She's a gem. She has the heart of a trucker.

Over the Top Sylvester Stallone movie where he has a cable weight lifting station in his semi.

Cummins, Diesel Engines done right.... Nuff Said... That shift pattern idea ... has Two guy in a bar, 14 bottles each of loud and obnoxious written all over it Matt That cold start was amazing....not but a spit of black smoke....that's a cummins for you

"Go buy the truck"... Your wife is a gem😁. Awsome truck and a very exiting video, ...Thank you Matt!!!

It’s so rare to see somebody who appreciates old equipment but that also uses it as intended. You, for example, wants to fix up this old truck to get it ready to work while so many would probably have it just as a lawn ornament

Takes me back to a early morning in a Haulage yard back in the late 1970's with six or seven Gardner engined British ERF's were idling over warming up while we sank a couple of mugs of Tea before setting off for various parts of the UK for our weeks work. Couldnt see a thing for white smoke ! great stuff Matt, an old video now but have been following the story and now waiting for the Big Cam cummings to be rebuilt and fitted !

I like the big funnel top for your oil collection tote, My concern is there is no lid to keep the rain and other debris off the screen and out of the oil. So It needs some sort of lid preferably a raised top lid to keep it covered while the old filters drain.

When I was a kid, some 70 years ago, I always liked the Autocar more than any other semi! The feeling now is still the same.

I run a rock crusher down here in Florida. We use a Cummins 855. And I'm telling you that engine is wonderful. We run at about $1,800 to 1900 RPMs for six to seven hours feeding that thing rocks and it's also running a large three-phase 440 generator at the same time. Long as you keep your filters clean it doesn't care

That trailer is an M172A1. It is rated for 25 ton at 30 mph on highway when behind an M52 truck. I have hauled 15 tons (Cat DV100 Deuce or Cat D6K) @ 50 mph reliably. It was designed to haul bulk material (stake pockets sized to hold 4×4 posts) and heavy equipment was an after thought since there are no places to store wheel covers or ramps. If I had one of those, I would add folding ramps to that trailer.

You have all the elements in place to produce a short RU-vid movie combining Duel and Killdozer. That truck chasing your neighbors on foot through your property………they fight back with the dozer.

MS30 is a 30 ton winch. Owned several of them on my winch tractors that I moved oil drilling rigs with. Great winches.

I knew I smelled something brewing in the last video as the winch was a hint

That’s an OLD Holland 5th wheel! While I recognize the slider plate/mid section, the actual plate is before my time back in the ‘70’s. Good luck finding replacement parts, jaws/pins etc. probably not a 63500 Holland kit we sold. I stuck a new Holland fifth wheel plate, 260 Lbs in the trunk of my 1966 Chevrolet Caprice and with studded tires pushed cars up a solid iced over bridge ramp while cops watched.

A leak on the emergency side of a rear brake chamber can show up as a leak on the relay valve & at the tractor park valve. Block off the emergency line to each chamber to diagnose before you go throwing valves at it.

I was also very excited to see your waste oil drain tank and the "funnel" that goes on top of the bulk storage tank. Great to see that Fluidall is filling this need. 30+ years ago, my shop foreman fabricated a couple of drain carts that looked very similar to yours and we would then pump them into a central shop drain tank that we would pump in to a 1500 gallon double wall tank located outside of the shop. Used a Wilton diaphragm pump mounted on the inside tank to move the oils. The outside tank then fed our waste oil heater. Really eliminated all of the waste oil handling problems. You new truck will be a very rewarding project.

Restaurant dishwasher tubs are great for oil changes, and they hold the weight without flexing.

Gotta love Autocar, used more or less the same cabs for 30ish years. Man that's clean, though, and all the body lines are all parallel to each other, that's just nuts. Even on an Autocar, which tend to be beefy, that's really something. Nobody beat up this truck *at all* and it shows.

Love the look of that truck! It looks like just the thing for chasing Dennis Weaver around the desert with!

Hey Matt ! The truck reminds me of that cool old truck that Stallone had in the movie Over the Top

I thought that was the parts truck getting towed away but it was not but that was really nice of your wife to say yes to buying that truck

Those are a life savior for me at my shop. Mine holds 72 quarts so I can service several vehicles and then dump all the oil. It make my life and job much easier. I have 80 pieces of equipment that I keep up, everything from pickups, tractors, boom trucks, directional boring machines and mini excavators. That drain pan make oil changes and all fluids so much easier. Those old 855 Cummins were and are still a workhorse of an engine. If I remember correctly on those transmissions the 6th gear in the up position is like a overdrive. Instead of it going through the countershaft it goes directly through the main shaft.

I wish they still made vehicles like this!.. tough, practical and reliable!!

I love the waste oil upgrades! I would make a roof or cover for your oil tank and new giant funnel....you don’t want to come back after a rain storm to see your oil tank full of water and oil mix. Keep up the good work on keeping old equipment alive! Love the new auto car! Can’t wait to see it on the road again!

Growing up dad had a 74 white construktor tandem dump truck with a 555 Cummins v8 with an Allison. , when I saw those headlights and dash lots of memories , many internationals after that but always remember that white. Great find!! It’s a keeper !

The big moving dolly from HF. 2 sheets of 3/4 plywood cut to the size of the tot. Screw the to each other and into the dolly. Play the mixing tot ontop. Move it anywhere you want and doesn't flex. What we did.... Good video!

With that intimidating rusty bumper and the whole look of the truck, in the summertime this might be a nice truck for a bit of road raging and terrorizing some poor city slicker in a little red sedan. After you get it road worthy of course.

I liked this intro a lot. Better than the speeding vehicle driving over a camera. This intro shows the property and your improvements made to it.

Love the "Over the top" reference. Such a classic movie.

A woman that is willing to learn and help out her husband is a rare gold mine of a person. You are very lucky Matt.

We had those Autocars,Diamond Reo, and Brock way on Jobs when I was a teen. Many had loud detroit's . One Mack had a V8 rare today. We could hear the ready mix concrete trucks ten minutes before they got to job site. You can make that winch pull stuff on and off back use a pulley on back pulls load off . 855 best Cummins ever. Keep your wife.. I traded mine for a boat.

I like the drain pan and funnel! Might wanna put a cover or roof over the funnel to keep the rain out!

We have a great solution for the oil problem in my barn. We have three oil drums the previous owners left for us when they used the barn to service construction rigs like diggers, trucks, and tractors back during the 60's. We just pour the oil into the oil drums. Never had to empty or replace them. It just magically disappears.

I envy you @Diesel Creek, you got to play around with all kind of big machinery in a beautifull green country side! I'm an office dweller (computer programmer) but something lights up inside me whenever I watch mechanics/machinery work. I must have been a mechanic in my previous life ;) Greetings from Romania!

I just found this 2 year old video but no animal tore that seat up. That was pure Bubba!!!

She's a great looking truck. I knew as soon as you showed it being driven that it wasn't for spares, I cant wait to see her being fixed up and with the diesel creek logo on the door.

Matt, Some of the early Cummins engines had a compression release that made for easier starting. Hunt around in there and maybe you'll find it, or maybe you could add it on. The backwards gear shift location was a set up by Eaton as an "overdrive" transmission. I noticed that there was also an air lock out for running in "Deep Reduction". That'll give that ol' girl some grunt! Am very interested in seeing this on future videos... and the grader too! Stay safe!!

Misses says "go buy that autocar" ... (you hear strange noise, look over, Matt's chair is empty) 🤩

When I worked in the oil patch in the 1970's we needed something to move concrete slabs that we placed Cat Industrial Engines, and Chicago Pneumatic gas compressors, piping, pressure vessels, etc. around the yard and in and out of the shop. The driver weighed almost 400 pounds, nicknamed "Heavy" and the truck had a flat bed with a large roller at the back. Heavy would back up, hang a cable bridle around the welded ears of the slab, winch the slab over the roller until the bridle came as close to the winch as possible. When the truck was lifting the slab, the front wheels usually came off the ground until the center of gravity moved over the back wheels then the truck would gently set its front wheels down. There wasn't much weight on the wheels, because if Heavy tried to turn too short, they would just skid. That old Autocar never failed, though there were a couple of times we had to have a bunch of guys hang onto the front bumper to get the wheels down. Brings back a lot of good memories. The animal that ate the driver's seat is the driver sliding in and out moving heavy equipment for short distances.

Matt that stab at us older guys was a bit “Over the Top”. Just playing love the content and look forward to much more. PA rules!!!!

I honestly love seeing all the tune ups but I can’t wait to see this truck get all fixed up and getting used ASAP.

I’ve seen 855s with 700 thousand plus miles. Awesome engine!

I love the sound of a cold Cummins ticking over.

I had a dream one time when I was a kid that my Dad bought me a truck like this and I was just about to drive it when mom hollered for me to get up ugh... You are truly living the dream man! lol

Great video!! A friendly bit of advice- make sure you can get rear wheels off hubs before going too far. Those Dayton hubs were notorious for wheels rusting to hubs. Take em off wire wheel the hub flats. A lot easier to do near the shop vs along the roadside!! Just be careful of tires. If they are weather checked they may not stand up to hwy speeds. You can see mfg dates on them and go from there. Enjoy the new (to you) truck!!

I’ve got an 88 international 9370 with an 855 in it, 400 from the factory but I did a new pump, injectors, duel fuel lines, all new soft lines, turbo, manifold, pretty much everything to turn it up, and the thing runs great, starts right up when it’s 20 degrees out (like 3 cranks) any colder than that and I plug it in, but it just surprises me how well it fires up, especially because I have it turned up…nice lookin truck by the way!

fantastic, i love the simple construction - you will never ever see that again i guess....

That is a pretty cool thing. I kind of thought a shower pan would work as well. Large, designed to put water into the middle, and you could lay it on top. Maybe your next one. Edit - Wait, isn't it odd that a truck arrives at your yard, but it runs and moves too? 2nd Edit - Holy Crap. That truck is a BEAST! That should have been the villain in Maximum Overdrive!

Matt It's that excitement you feel as your mind goes through all the possibilities of your new acquisition that gives you the incentive to do all the work you need to to bring each piece to the standard you need it to be. Those who don't understand have never experienced it. They are usually the Dreamers as opposed to us Doers. Thank you Mrs you are so good to our friend Matt.

If someone tells me to "imagine a truck" this is what comes to mind. Somewhat menacing with the long snout and angular fenders, you can tell she means business.

I've been watching a lot of your videos from putting up your machine shed to the Autocar. Just gotta love it. Watching you fix old things, making them work, you just don't see any more. I've been a mechanic all my life, so it is easy to identify with the thrill you get from a cold start to swinging your boom truck. I've been retired for a while and don't have the muscle to do these things so watching you brings back great memories. Good luck, be safe and enjoy.

TWIN STICKS GARAGE *breathing heavily

I love the truck. Badass for sure. It’s amazing the condition it is in for a 1980. It’s 80% complete IMO. It just needs some minor TLC, paint and new chrome and it will look like new. Put some LED headlights and work lights on it and get that front bumper cleaned up and covered with rhino guard would look awesome.It’s a real head turner.

Nice Autocar. I like the old semi trucks from the 60's, 70's and 80's compared to today's trucks.

That is a beautiful beast. Wish they still built them like that.

I (having spent my entire career in factories) am unreasonably excited about the fact that someone makes a drain funnel specifically for totes.

This truck right here is the poster child for your channel! It's beautiful AS IS! The only thing you should do is slap a couple of Diesel Creek stickers on the doors, paint the rims bright white, and put a chrome turn on the exhaust. Put a clear coat to protect what's left of the paint but this is a beautiful rat rod of a semi. Congratulations!

That Autocar Constructor with a Cummins 855 is a Boss truck. I know after owning an Autocar dump truck. I would put a dump body on it and have the best built. Road tractors for Trailers are everywhere. Engine heater helps along. It should have a compression release for cold starting. Never run out of fuel hurting the fuel pump. Always carry a spare fuel filter. I know.. TD Atlanta

Just remember Matt to listen to your wife when it comes to plant equipment!! And, G'day from Australia. I have just found your RU-vid site and am really enjoying all your vids.

Diesel Creek scores Big Time. New Dimension has now been added. " How we gonna keep him down on the farm ...." Is there a cover for the drain oil tank to keep rain out?

Just brilliant, Mat. Looking forward to seeing this "Bad Boy" all cleaned up and ready to go "down the road".

I drove Autocars in the 70s 5x4, 13 peed, best truck built.. Western Star was same cab and parts..then I bought otr Auto car Sweet Caterpillar!!!!

I anxiously await the film of you rewinding that cable on the Autocar winch. It really needs some attention so I can satisfy my ocd. I truly enjoy your videos. I grew up in farm country and then spent my youth as a heavy equipment operator in the US Navy SeaBees. (1956 - 1966) I can relate to all the older equipment.

Hey Matt, this video was "Over the Top"! That's one badass rig you've got yourself. Can't wait to see all the work on it. 👍

I worked on the strip mines in west Virginia and Kentucky for 25 years, double frame was the only way to go, nothing on strip mines but lots of mud and muck, that explains all the caked on muck. Just an FYI, you'll want to get all that caked on muck off, it holds moisture and causes lots of rust underneath. Just from my experience. Cool find though. Congratulations

The orange Autocar is very cool ! When I was a kid I dreamed of being a long haul trucker and in my mind’s eye my truck looked like that, with a sleeper, a little more chrome, but most importantly it sounded just like yours !! Kink of the highway !

Matt, the old oil can be used to paint fences, that oil is not fun to be eaten by bugs. Also, the old timers used it to protect old cars giving them a personal patina.

You have hit a nerve my friend, these are my all time favorite trucks, can't wait to watch this one

Matt those older Autocars were just beasts back in their day. They were well built and powerful. My dad had a 58 Autocar here on the ranch in Montana, with a 400 Cummings, used it to haul cattle. Great video!👍👌🍻🇺🇸🇸🇪

Those small cam Cummins hate cold starts. I have a 1969 Ford with a 250 Cummins and if its cooler than 50 degrees outside, it takes it forever to start. Now my other Ford with the big cam 350, it starts no problem no matter how cold it is outside. There's nothig like that old Cummins sound. You don't get that sound from these new ones. Keep saving these old trucks, cause there's very few left and very few folks that appreciate them like we do.

I worked on so many Autocars over the last 40 or so years. I miss the old ones and you could not kill them but the interiors would fall apart over time.

Absolutely loved this vid Mat. The sheer joy you express is like a little boy on Christmas morning opening his presents under the tree!

used motor oil can be used as protection of the end of fence posts, and other exposed wooden contraptions, Greta approves.

That is the very first truck I drove, hauling frack tanks in south Texas oil patch. It brings back some memories

That’s one sweet old rig! And yes I got the reference with the weights, OVER THE TOP! Good movie.

Rain might be problem if you leave that big funnel on without a roof, Loved the video.

I Wonder if the old drain pan is big enough to flip over and make a dust/rain cover for the portable drain pan?

Matt, go to your nearest auto paint store and get you a couple containers of metal prep, it is phospheric acid that changes rust to zinc, I use it all the time on a lot of my truck, tractor and mowers and small parts, if you don't know this but if you drink dr.pepper, pepsi or cokeacola, there is phospheric acid in all of them !

Big kid and his toys love it. Really like the older trucks they look so much better then modern ones nice job👍👍

I always say, it's the little things in life that excite me the most. Be it neat gadgets or a tool you didn't know existed and start using all the time.

Wow that’s a brilliant way of transferring oils into an IBC tank.. got to get both items.. cheers Matt 🇬🇧🇬🇧

And I was saying, "Jeez, just go get the 4th battery!" Congrats on the new old toy!

Over the top is a good flick... Your green autocar is closer to the year of the truck in the movie then this orange one

You just love old equipment, don't you? 😀Keep the good work!

I started watching your channel a year or so ago because it reminded me of my “formative” years(50+ago). We lived on a couple different farms and could never afford newer equipment. Between my grandfathers and dad I learned about hydraulics, pneumatics, etc, and how to salvage parts to keep our old machines running. They weren’t shiny but they worked. It’s nice to see you keeping these beasts running.

"Wow,,!!" Wat a sweet addition to the deisel creek farm,,,!!

I can see the construcktor being painted army green, definitely look awesome with the trailer.

I think you should make a "big wheel" retrofit video for that oil cart. Some nice wheelbarrow tires perhaps?

Matt, you’ve got yourself a world class woman. Keep her! Happy Thanksgiving! Cheers, Whipple

That is a sweet old truck. And fits your fleet to perfection.

Wow! That truck brings back memories. I worked as a mechanic and spent almost all of my time on trucks like that. The Cummins NTC 230 is a great engine. Never had a problem with it. Should be very easy to get parts for it. Don't mind me, I'm the kind of guy that would restore it to almost new condition. Best of luck with it!

The silver "glitter" when you stirred the oil, and you know that whatever this oil came from, worked hard 😉

Orange Mammoth!!!

That drain pan and mat has so much room for activities!

You know Matt, it doesn't take much to make a man happy. Reducing the stress of a mess from oil Clean-ups and a upgraded funnel to figure out where to drain things is all part of one less things to think about. As far as the Auto Car trucks that 80 is nice and the 57 is one to do a little at a time to make a nice piece to be proud of one day.